Pakatan Harapan Shadow Budget 2018 Has No Focus on Indian Community

Pakatan Harapan shadow budget 2018 has given no attention to the needs of Indian community, said MIC president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam.

He said he could not find any initiatives from the opposition’s budget to safeguard the interests of the Indian community.

“This is despite the opposition’s insistence that its budget is much better than the government’s 2018 Budget.

“The national Budget reaches the entire community as everyone gets a slice from it, which is the essence of the financial plans,” he told a press conference here today.

Subramaniam said the programmes in the Budget would also complement the recently launched Malaysian Indian Blueprint.

Among the proposals in 2018 Budget included special funding of RM500 million in the next five years for interest-free loans to those qualified among the 100,000 Indian households in the low-income group to subscribe to up to 5,000 units of Amanah Saham 1Malaysia.

Another RM50 million was proposed to be channelled to the micro-financing fund for small businesses, or Tekun, to assist more than 35,000 Indian entrepreneurs.

Subramaniam said the 2018 Budget would power the country’s economic growth.

“With all the announcements made by the prime minister in the Budget, we can expect significant economic growth.”